The First Year of the Tweeter in Chief

On Nov. 8, 2016, the earth shook.’Twas the day Donald Trump was elected President of the United Status. Some people rejoiced, waving their “Make America Great Again” hats in the air, gleeful about having a president who rejects “political correctness.” Others protested, angered at the prospect of four years of policies that hurt the planet, the working class, people of color, immigrants, and women.

The conversation on social media reveals how people reacted to Trump as he struggled to find his way through the first year of his presidency. From cryptic tweets like “covfefe” to withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, the Trump presidency provides plenty of topics to discuss. We identified the following:

Top moments that triggered discussion

How discussion topics about Trump changed over time

Top hashtags people used to discuss Trump

Top Trump moments

The day after Trump was elected president generated 5 million posts, the highest number of posts in his one-year reign. The next spike in discussion volume came on Jan. 20: his inauguration generated 1.5 million posts.

On May 9, Trump’s firing of James Comey generated 626k posts. When Trump announced a transgender military ban on Jul. 26, conversation reached 1.7 million posts. About a month later, white supremacists held a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump’s pinning the violence on “both sides” triggered fury from people. 1.5 million posts were generated that day. If there’s anything Trump obsesses over more than ratings, it is the NFL. So when football players “took a knee” to protest police brutality, a blustering Trump tweeted that they should stand for the National Anthem.

Word cloud

Discussion topics about Trump changed over the course of his first year in office. Fresh off his election victory, the most common discussion topics revolved around the election, indicated by terms like electoral college, Bernie Sanders, candidate, and #election2016. During Q1 2017, the main focus was on the inauguration. As time progressed, topics shifted to evolve the latest Trump administration policies and scandals.

Read More About The Elements of Social Media Analytics:

Top hashtags

When it comes to the top hashtags associated with Trump, #MAGA ranks first. Frequently used by Trump and his supporters, #MAGA is also emblazoned on baseball caps, and other swag. Throughout his campaign and during his presidency, Trump frequently accused news organizations that did not publish flattering material as “fake news.” This attitude was adopted by his press secretaries Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Republican pundits like Tomi Lahren, and his supporters. Though Trump’s supporters have adopted #MAGA and #FakeNews as their rallying cries, Trump protesters have adopted #ImpeachTrump, #resist, #NotMyPresident, and #TheResistance.

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Conclusion

Trump’s presidency has been a whirlwind of madness and it’s only the first year. Looking at social media data tells the story of how people are reacting to his reign.

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In Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Library of Babel, an infinite expanse of hexagonal rooms filled with books contained every possible arrangement of letters. For every important, beautiful, or useful book in this library there existed endless volumes of gibberish.

The only way to navigate this vast sea of meaningless information was to locate the Crimson Hexagon, the one room that contained a log of every other book in the library—a guide to extracting meaning from all the unstructured information.

Like Borges’ Crimson Hexagon, we aim to be a key to the world of social data, guiding your business and helping you uncover where to go next.